The Flickcast

First Trailer for George Lucas’ ‘Red Tails’ Arrives

Posted on July 29, 2011

Presented without much in the way of comment is the first trailer for Red Tails, which tells the story of the first African American aerial combat unit in WWII. These men, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, were the first men of color to fly in a combat squadron and fought bravely and overcame adversity to defend our country during the war.

The film features an impressive cast including Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr, Bryan Cranston and David Oyelowo. It’s directed by Anthony Hemingway with Charles Floyd Johnson and Lucas regular Rick McCallum producing. George Lucas is executive producing. Let’s not confuse this with the film The Tuskegee Airmen with Lawrence Fishburne. This one looks like it has better effects.

The film will be released on January 20, 2012 from Fox. Check out the trailer after the break.

Film Review: ‘Terri’

Posted on July 29, 2011

Terri is the latest entry in the “oh God, high school sucked” genre (will we ever get a film that puts us in the eyes of the “popular” kids?) that tells the story of Terri (Jacob Wysocki), a sullen, picked-on, overweight underachiever who knows as much about who and where his parents are as we do. Terri lives with and cares for his senile Uncle James (The Office’s Creed Bratton); pines for the pretty-girl Heather (Olivia Crocicchia); shares detention with the hair-pulling-kid Chad (Bridger Zadina); and sparks an interest in quirky-assistant-principal Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly). The pieces fit into place, and the actors perform with talent and aplomb.

Unfortunately, Terri doesn’t offer anything new to the genre. As the poster says, “We’ve all been there,” and I suppose we have, whether it be in high school, college, or work. But a thought occurred to me near the end of the film: What is the point of this movie? Is it “Don’t pick on the fat kid”?

Terri isn’t really picked on for the bulk of the film, and those who do pick on him are never punished; they’re simply forgotten. Perhaps it’s the old axiom, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But no one’s opinion of Terri really changes—even Fitzgerald sees the good in him from the outset.

Amazon Makes Streaming Deal with NBC Universal

Posted on July 29, 2011

The online content streaming landscape just got a bit more interesting as Amazon announced late Thursday it has made a deal with NBCUniversal to provide 1,000 Universal Pictures movies to its streaming customers. The new content includes films such as Being John Malkovich, The Jetsons, Flipper, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Billy Elliott. Well, that’s quite a cross-section of content.

This new deal is in addition to the one Amazon recently made for it to offer CBS shows such as Star Trek and Cheers to its customers. All these deals for content make perfect sense if you think Amazon is about to release a tablet in the next few months.

It’s widely been speculated that said tablet would be coming out and give users access to the company’s Amazon Unbox, Amazon Mp3, Kindle, Cloud Music and Cloud Drive services. All of that and a well done tablet powered by Android could, potentially, take a bite out of Apple’s iPad dominance. We’ll see.

Check out the full press release after the jump.

Film Review: ‘Cowboys and Aliens’

Posted on July 29, 2011

It has cowboys. It has aliens. It has cowboys and aliens. It’s not a bad film. It’s not a good film. It is a movie. That’s a pretty lackluster opener, but, walking out of the screening, I felt almost completely neutral about Cowboys and Aliens–it was like the things I liked and the things I disliked were in perfect balance.

The film doesn’t fail to deliver on anything the title promises, and you can lose count of the standard tropes from either genre that it hits, but it’s tough to maintain the toothy grin I expected all throughout. Though I’m getting ahead of myself.

Daniel Craig plays Jake Lonergan (one of many last names I suspect are puns but am not entirely sure), a notorious outlaw who awakes one morning with a heavy case of amnesia and one hell of a bracelet on his left arm. He makes his way to the nearest town, controlled by the gruff cattle rancher Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his uppity son Percy (Paul Dano), whose favorite pastime is terrifying the community at large and in particular the local bartender (Sam Rockwell) and his wife (Ana de la Reguera).

It’s not long before Jake endears himself to the locals, among them the soused preacher (Clancy Brown), the woman with a secret (Olivia Wilde), and, naturally, the sheriff (Keith Carradine) by punching out Percy, and not long after that that his identity is revealed, and he’s locked up. Still less longer, the aliens arrive, capture a handful of significant townsfolk, and everyone’s differences are set aside as they form a posse to recover the abductees. ‘round about this time, Jake discovers that his bracelet is able to sense the aliens and, better yet, can blow ‘em up real good.

SDCC11 Exclusive Interview: Bill Pullman Talks ‘Torchwood’, His ‘Independence Day’ Speech

Posted on July 29, 2011

Bill Pullman is one of those famed actors who’s resume has some of the weirdest stuff you’ll ever see on it. From playing the lead in a Mel Brooks spoof about Star Wars, to the troop-rallying president in Michael Bay’s Independence Day, and even to the child-killing death row inmate in Torchwood: Miracle Day, it seems like no role can disinterest the man.

Pullman joined the cast of Torchwood this season as they finally make their way to American soil and debut on Starz with Miracle Day. This time, he’s neither a wise-cracking hero nor the flag-waving veteran. This time he’s a stone cold killer.

In this season, the world is plagued by something that wouldn’t normally be considered a plague: not a single person on the planet can die. That includes Pullman’s character Oswald Danes, who was sentenced to lethal injection on that day. Things didn’t exactly go according to plan, and Pullman’s Danes is out on the streets.

We got a chance to speak with Bill about what drew him to this new-ish series and what he loves about the writing. We also got to ask him about how much of his famous Independence Day speech he remembers. The speech has lately had a new found love on the web, as even New York City comic Sean Kleier performs it in the most awkward of locations.

Take a look at our interview after the jump. Catch up on this season of Torchwood, only on Starz.

Nintendo 3DS Price Drop Spells Trouble for the Handheld Platform

Posted on July 29, 2011

Nintendo has sent out official word that in two weeks, their latest gaming platform, the Nintendo 3DS will be having its first price drop. Usually price drops happen once a system has been available for an extended period of time and the initial sales spike begins to falter. Unfortunately for Nintendo, their 3DS never had an initial spike.

A few years ago, the Nintendo DS was the chart topping selling system, even overtaking the next-gen XBox 360 and PlayStation 3, many times beating the Nintendo Wii and completely crushing the PlayStation Portable. Since its March release however, the 3DS hasn’t even hit the 1,000,000 seller mark and it has not been for lack of systems available to consumers.

Now in what looks to be a desperation move to entice consumers to purchase the new portable, Nintendo is dropping the MSRP a full $80 from $249.99 to $169.99. Never before has a Nintendo console had such a massive price drop, especially in such a short time since its release. The lack of software available to consumers is most likely the reason for the system’s subpar sales. Even with the price drop, it will be the software that ultimately will drive sales to the system.

Film Review: ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’

Posted on July 29, 2011

Based on the cast (Steve Carell and Julianne Moore as a married couple Cal and Emily—how perfect) and a promising trailer, I went into Crazy, Stupid, Love fully expecting to love it. I didn’t, but I did leave loving the young couple (a surprisingly funny Ryan Gosling as Jacob and Emma Stone as Hannah). They had everything going for them—charm, chemistry and perfect timing. Emma Stone is darling and hilarious and deserves every bit of the praise and buzz she’s receiving.

They’re no mere insanely pretty faces, either. Both Gosling and Stone have smarts and personality that shine through, despite the screenplay’s sometimes ridiculous shortcomings. Yes, the screenplay. Who the heck greenlit this thing? With all the money they must’ve had, they couldn’t have hired someone to perk this thing up?

The clichés, oh the clichés. This is one of those movies where the crowd acts as one simple-minded, one-minded body. You know what I’m talking about. Everyone in the office pokes their heads above their cubicles at once and claps. Everyone stands outside and with the exact same judgmental expression watches the hero’s meltdown in the school parking lot. Stuff a normal group of individuals would never do. It’s the equivalent of a laugh track in a dumb sit-com. But that’s not all.

‘Tales From The Crypt’ Creeping its Way Back To Television With a Reboot

Posted on July 29, 2011

Tales from the Crypt, the campy-yet-excellent horror staple of the early 90s television, is back in news as producers are hoping to reignite that spark once again with a modern reboot. After 15 years of being off the small screen, the horror series will be returning to television.

The new series is being developed by Gil Adler, a producer on the original HBO series, and Andrew Cosby, best known for his work on Eureka. The hour-long series will be based on the comics. Unlike it’s predecessor, the new series will not follow the anthology format, but will follow a standard series format using the characters in an ongoing storyline format.

Those of you who read the original comic books will see this is a strange turn of events as the comics didn’t have much in the way of returning characters. Other than The Crypt-Keeper, The Vault-Keeper and The Old Witch, all other characters and the “victims” of the stories always changed. It is also being reported that The Crypt-Keeper, The Vault-Keeper and The Old Witch are not going to be part of the new series.

The original HBO series, which spawned collectibles and movies through out the 90s, ran for seven seasons. It attracted an impressive stable of directors and actors including Robert Zemeckis, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Buscemi, Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Kirk Douglas, Joe Pesci, Brad Pitt, Ewan McGregor, Malcom McDowell, Bob Hoskins, Brooke Sheilds, Benicio Del Toro, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Richard Donner, Walter Hill, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, William Friedkin, Tobe Hoober and Michael J. Fox.

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